It always fascinates me that as adults we have so many childhood memories tucked away in our subconscious that we have forgotten about- and it isn't until something happens in our lives that brings one or more of those memories back to our remembrance. It could be a song, a smell, a place or something important only to us. Well I had one of those moments just a few days ago after it had snowed a few wet inches. Growing up in New England I have become accustomed to the winters here. As a child I loved the winter even though we lived at the bottom of a private road that the town plows would not and in fact could not plow due to the steep grade of our road. Because of this our family adopted this road as our own personal driveway and it became our responsibility to clear the road of all snow, and since we did not own a plow or a snow-blower back in those days- the only way to remove the snow was by hand- with a shovel.
This was not an easy task even for an adult- much less a bunch of kids under the age of twelve. If our family car was in our driveway, it would take us hours to shovel the snow for us to get the car out and park it at the top of the hill. This wasn't an option- it was an absolute necessity. We needed a car so we had no choice but to clear the road- and clear the road we did. We also sanded and salted the road and then prayed to God that the car would make it up the first time without sliding back down. (And sometimes it did slide back down and actually get stuck!)
Once we got the car out and up the hill we would park it on a side street and then walk back down the hill to our house. It wasn't so bad if you weren't carrying anything, but coming home from the shopping center was always a fun adventure. It would take a few trips with a few of us kids to help carry the bags of groceries from the car at the top of the hill to our house at the bottom of the road. It wasn't like we had a choice so this just became the norm for us. If we knew a snowstorm was coming, my older sister or my parents would drive the car to the top of the hill and park the car on the side of New Street and then walk back down the hill. Even though the car was safely out of our driveway it didn't remove the responsibility of having to shovel the road anyway. We at least needed a pathway to get up and down the hill.
I was remembering all of this while I was outside trying to get my snow blower working to clear our driveway here in Connecticut. I must have used old or bad gasoline and the snow blower was reacting poorly to the affected fuel and finally just gave up so I had to grab the shovel and clear the balance of our driveway by hand. I found myself complaining that I had to use a shovel and almost immediately I was back in time about 35 years as a kid holding a shovel looking down at a road that I just barely cleared less then a third of. Standing there in my driveway I remembered how long it took me to shovel our road and I also remembered I rarely, if ever, complained about it. It was what it was! I was the only boy and the second oldest of us younger kids so it just became my responsibility as the natural order of things.
As I stood there getting colder and wetter as the freezing rain was coming down making the snow harder and heavier to lift, I realized how spoiled this generation has become with our electronic gadgets and gasoline-powered inventions to do our jobs for us that we did by hand as kids, sometimes also as adults. I cleared as much as I could then I did what any self-respecting man would do. I tried starting the snow blower again and again. I even put new gas in and finally got it going enough to finish the clearing the driveway. Mission accomplished!
I guess what I learned in that brief moment is that although we may have had it more difficult than others, we had it alot better than most. I took out the trash, raked the leaves in our yard, I washed the cars in the summer and I shoveled our ridiculously long private road every winter for years- and we did it for FREE!
This was not an easy task even for an adult- much less a bunch of kids under the age of twelve. If our family car was in our driveway, it would take us hours to shovel the snow for us to get the car out and park it at the top of the hill. This wasn't an option- it was an absolute necessity. We needed a car so we had no choice but to clear the road- and clear the road we did. We also sanded and salted the road and then prayed to God that the car would make it up the first time without sliding back down. (And sometimes it did slide back down and actually get stuck!)
Once we got the car out and up the hill we would park it on a side street and then walk back down the hill to our house. It wasn't so bad if you weren't carrying anything, but coming home from the shopping center was always a fun adventure. It would take a few trips with a few of us kids to help carry the bags of groceries from the car at the top of the hill to our house at the bottom of the road. It wasn't like we had a choice so this just became the norm for us. If we knew a snowstorm was coming, my older sister or my parents would drive the car to the top of the hill and park the car on the side of New Street and then walk back down the hill. Even though the car was safely out of our driveway it didn't remove the responsibility of having to shovel the road anyway. We at least needed a pathway to get up and down the hill.
I was remembering all of this while I was outside trying to get my snow blower working to clear our driveway here in Connecticut. I must have used old or bad gasoline and the snow blower was reacting poorly to the affected fuel and finally just gave up so I had to grab the shovel and clear the balance of our driveway by hand. I found myself complaining that I had to use a shovel and almost immediately I was back in time about 35 years as a kid holding a shovel looking down at a road that I just barely cleared less then a third of. Standing there in my driveway I remembered how long it took me to shovel our road and I also remembered I rarely, if ever, complained about it. It was what it was! I was the only boy and the second oldest of us younger kids so it just became my responsibility as the natural order of things.
As I stood there getting colder and wetter as the freezing rain was coming down making the snow harder and heavier to lift, I realized how spoiled this generation has become with our electronic gadgets and gasoline-powered inventions to do our jobs for us that we did by hand as kids, sometimes also as adults. I cleared as much as I could then I did what any self-respecting man would do. I tried starting the snow blower again and again. I even put new gas in and finally got it going enough to finish the clearing the driveway. Mission accomplished!
I guess what I learned in that brief moment is that although we may have had it more difficult than others, we had it alot better than most. I took out the trash, raked the leaves in our yard, I washed the cars in the summer and I shoveled our ridiculously long private road every winter for years- and we did it for FREE!
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